


sweetness & strength

by Lyre (Lyrecho)



Category: AI: The Somnium Files (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, In This House We Love The Date-Sagan Family, Oneshot, Resolution Route Spoilers, Slight Canon Discrepancies, The AI Discord Made Me Do This And I Thank Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21517237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Lyre
Summary: A mother is love; sweetness and strength in equal parts.Hitomi Sagan is the strongest woman alive.|Tumblr||Twitter|
Relationships: Date Kaname/Sagan Hitomi, Sagan Hitomi & Okiura Mizuki, Sagan Hitomi & Sagan Iris
Comments: 14
Kudos: 116





	sweetness & strength

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i wrote this in like one sitting after some prompting in the ai discord because i have a lot of Hitomi Sagan Feelings. love her. wish she was my mum. wish she was my wife. wish i was her. what a queen.
> 
> ANYWAY
> 
> this was a nice break from the other ai fic i'm working on rn (just broke 20k for chapter. one. and chapter one isn't done yet. hELP??) and i might be posting some more oneshots separate from The Longfic From Hell to save my brain as i chip away at it. please enjoy this fic!! (and look forward to more :3)

Hitomi knows a good teacher does not favour certain students over the others. A good teacher does not pay special attention to specific students. She knows this.

Still...she cannot help herself when it comes to Mizuki Okiura.

She’s a sweet girl, and a bright student - but she always arrives to school alone; from the train, not escorted by a parent or guardian. She awkwardly avoids answering just why her parents are never available for parent/teacher nights, or why they can’t come to any of the numerous meetings Hitomi has requested.

She’s different, and it scares the other kids off, a little. Mizuki is lonely, and that hurts, somewhere deep inside. Reminds Hitomi of a version of herself that existed before Manaka and Renju walked into her life and refused to leave.

A good teacher wouldn’t dote on a student as much as Hitomi Sagan does Mizuki Okiura.

(Hitomi has never claimed to be perfect.)

-x-

When the news breaks that Shoko Nadami is dead, Hitomi prepares for a few things.

She prepares to address her class about grief - to make sure that they understand that whenever Mizuki comes back, they’ll have to be understanding and patient with her - and she prepares to field a call from Renju, whenever he calls her. He and Shoko had never been a good fit, and they’d been split for years at this point, but there was still a part of him that loved her, and would grieve. Would blame himself.

(Renju had never handled loss well, not after…)

But the call never comes, and Hitomi starts to worry.

(A different call comes, and that’s one less worry on her plate.)

Mizuki messages her on LINE, asking for Hitomi to take her home. A good teacher doesn’t play favourites, but Hitomi has a soft spot for Mizuki she can’t deny. She can’t say no.

_ I want to go home, _ Mizuki writes out, tears shining in her eyes but not falling. Her jaw is tight. Her hands shake.

“To your father’s house?” 

_ NO, _ Mizuki writes.  _ Home _ _.  _ She writes an address underneath the word she underlines; it’s outside of the school district. Hitomi feels questions bubble up inside her. She knows that, for some reason, Mizuki doesn’t live with Renju - but with a relative of some sort, instead. Renju had described the man as ‘a brother to him,’ but Hitomi knew Renju had no siblings. A cousin of some sort, she had figured. She knows this...but it still seems strange, to her, that Mizuki doesn’t want to see her father, especially after…

Hitomi stops her thoughts there. All that matters, right now, is Mizuki. “Okay,” she says, and makes sure to smile. “Let’s take you home.”

-x-

‘Home’ is far more industrial than Hitomi is expecting - the outside of the building is a terrifying, run down  _ wreck _ that makes both the mother and teacher in her want to drag Mizuki home to  _ her _ house instead of letting her walk inside - but Mizuki, still silent and small, steps out of her car and walks into the building casually. She has a key.

Hitomi scrambles to follow her.

The interior of the building is a little better off - and as they make their way up levels, it slowly transitions into a place she could feasibly see people living in. Mizuki stops in front of a door, unlocks it, and steps inside. Hitomi walks in behind her, and makes sure the lock clicks shut when the door closes.

Mizuki guns straight for the only bed in the one room apartment. Her guardian - her so-called ‘roommate’ - is nowhere to be found.

Unimportant, even as it makes the corners of Hitomi’s mouth turn down into a frown. Deal with Mizuki’s home life later. Deal with  _ Mizuki _ now.

She holds her through the night, like she’d held Iris after the incident, one armed and soothing with nonsense words - just letting her know Hitomi was there, that Hitomi loved her.

At some point, hours on into the night, when time has lost all meaning, Mizuki finally breaks down.

Hitomi holds her closer. Tighter.

“I’m here,” she promises.

-x-

The next morning, Mizuki is still quiet and withdrawn, but her voice isn’t gone again. She answers Hitomi’s gentle queries with short answers, and even manages to summon up a weak smile of thanks when she makes her eggs for breakfast. Scrambled; nice and fluffy, the way Iris used to like them.

As the day ticks on, Hitomi stays. She feels slightly uncomfortable to be lingering in someone else’s home for so long without permission, but Mizuki needs her, and she doesn’t feel comfortable leaving a grieving child alone.

_ Where is Mizuki’s guardian? _

“Mizuki?” Hitomi starts gentle and Mizuki, from where she’d been getting weights ready to lift -  _ can she really lift that much? Is it safe? _ \- “Where is your, uh, roommate?”

Mizuki shrugs. “He’s a cop,” she mutters. “He’s probably out trying to...trying to…” She falters, and stops. Hitomi can hear the words she fails to speak, anyway.

_ Mum. Murdered. _

“I see,” she says, soft and apologetic. “Sorry, Mizuki.”

Mizuki shrugs. “It’s fine.”

She hasn’t been...lifting? for long when the sound of a door unlocking echoes through the empty acoustics of the room Mizuki calls home. Mizuki’s guardian, Hitomi supposes, finally come home.

She’s surprised, to say the least, when Kaname Date walks through the door.

He’s briefly brought up short by her presence within his apartment - she can tell he is. He freezes mid step when his eyes lock on her, and his hand at his side twitches in a way she’ll always be familiar with, thanks to Falco and his jumpy instincts that had never quite left him; he’s reaching for a gun.

His gaze is still moving, though, carefully taking in the room, and she can tell when he finds Mizuki, too. Relief and worry light up on his face, and that tension that had built up when he’d seen her melts away.

Their conversation is short, if polite.

Hitomi leaves, reassured that Mizuki has someone by her side who loves her unconditionally, even if they’re both unbearably awkward about it - like she had been, at first, with Iris, except Iris hadn’t been able to talk back to her and make it harder.

She’s still worried for Mizuki, though. She has a mother’s instincts, she can’t help it. She makes a mental note to check up on her a bit more often.

-x-

Iris is in danger. Iris is in danger. There’s no time. No time.

(Hitomi forgets about her promise.)

(Forgets about Mizuki.)

-x-

Talking about Manaka, really talking about her, hurts. She hasn’t spoken this out loud in years - hasn’t  _ ever _ \- and it hurts.

It also feels like a weight lifting off of her shoulders, like catharsis. Date’s hand on her shoulder is warm and grounding, and he looks at her without judgement.

“You understand, right?” She asks through her tears, recalling the way he’d looked at Mizuki that morning, the relief and concern in his eyes. “You understand why I - why I had to do it. For Iris. You understand.”

“I understand,” he says softly. He doesn’t elaborate, because he isn’t ready to admit the full depth of what he means, just yet, but he says it anyway. Hitomi only sobs harder, silently, tears blinding her. 

Renju had been the only other person in the entire world who’d known about Manaka before this, and he’d never understood. He’d given up Mizuki, and it was the best thing he’d ever done for her. He didn’t  _ understand. _

Date understood, if subconsciously, and it’s freeing, even as that relief chokes under her fear and worry.

“Hitomi,” Date says, even and serious. “ _ Where _ is Iris?”

She can’t tell him. She  _ can’t _ . If he goes there without her, if he  _ leaves her behind - _

Iris’ life. She can’t.

Standing in the dark, Date offers her his trust.

“Take me, then,” he says. “We’ll get her back together.”

He  _ understands. _

-x-

Hitomi had thought she could never be more terrified than she was when that yakuza had burst into her home and destroyed her family; feeling the bullets rip through her, seeing Falco led away in cuffs before the pain sank into darkness and she knew nothing until waking up post surgery with a dead arm and a daughter crying over her, begging her not to die.

She’d been wrong. Fear was a doctor telling her her daughter had a year to live, at best.

She’d thought that was her new peak of terror - the inevitability of it all, slowly watching Iris lose her vibrancy, feeling the cold ache of loss anew each time her daughter said something that made  _ no sense _ with all the confidence she’d always had.

She’d been wrong. Fear was a gun to her head, while her children watch her die.

While Falco watches her die.

She has no idea what’s going on. The man counting down beside her is Kaname Date, but it isn’t. There’s none of that gentleness she’d seen in him. None of that love for Mizuki, that concern for Iris. 

None of that  _ understanding _ .

She doesn’t know what’s going on, but she knows where this is headed.

She wants to squeeze her eyes shut, wants to block out the world, run away - 

But if this is where her life ends, she wants those last few precious seconds of time with her - with her family.

Ota, so grown up since she’d taught him but still wearing those goofy clothes - he’s disbelieving, pale as whey. Mizuki is bloody, injured - she’s shaking, but she’s looking at Falco with something like hope; the childish belief that he’ll be able to save the day. Hitomi chokes on a sob. Mizuki has already lost so much. She doesn’t want to be the reason for the loss of her last fragments of innocence.

Iris is watching Hitomi, transfixed. There’s that hope in her eyes, too - that belief that Uncle will save Mother - but there’s a set to her jaw, her gaze, that tells Hitomi she’s trying to memorise her face, every feature of it. Just in case. Just in case.

_ Look away, _ she wants to plead, but her lips won’t move. Her jaw won’t unlock. _ Please, look away, I don’t want you to watch me die, I don’t want that to be your last memory of me, please, my loves, look away - _

Falco is openly sobbing, and that’s when Hitomi knows hope is lost.

“One,” says Kaname Date’s voice, and Hitomi squeezes her eyes shut.

There’s a bang, but the bullet Hitomi’s expecting never comes. The splatter of warmth on the side of her face makes her flinch, and she can taste copper.

She opens her eyes. Kaname Date’s headless corpse falls.

She’s alive.

-x-

Injured, tired and slow, they all make their way to the ground level of the warehouse. Hitomi’s wrists ache where they’d been tied; too tight. Iris clings to her like she’s a little girl again, her fingers rubbing in circles around the rope marks.

“Need to make sure your circulation is okay!” She says, bright and determinedly cheerful. Her voice shakes, just like every other part of her. Shock. Terror. Relief setting in. This night will haunt her nightmares for weeks to come.

Hitomi holds her, close and tight. “I love you,” she whispers. She just needs to say it.

_ I’m alive. I love you. _

Iris jolts a bit in her arms, before weakly nodding. She can feel wet heat make its way down her neck - Iris is crying on her shoulder, silently.

It’s better than the blood, which she’s trying desperately not to think about. 

Her gaze flicks throughout the warehouse, looking for a distraction -

\- and falls on something else she’d been trying not to think about.

_ Falco. _

As Iris clings to her, Mizuki clings to Falco, which is something Hitomi wants to question, but can’t - not right now, at least, when everyone is raw and wounded, inside and out.

Mizuki sits, curled up next to Falco, resting all her weight on her uninjured leg. Her hands are twisted in Falco’s jacket, knuckles bone white with how hard she’s clenching the material. Every now and then, a soft, pained whimper breaks out of her throat, and Hitomi’s heart breaks all over again. She’s twelve. She’s  _ twelve. _

And whoever - whatever - that was in Date’s body  _ shot _ her.

(That, if nothing else, reassures her that her instincts were right. Date would never hurt Mizuki.  _ Never. _ )

Falco shifts, a little, to turn to Mizuki and make a little reassuring sound. His eyes are filled with concern as he looks her over - he always was good with children, Hitomi recalls fondly; he’d loved spending hours upon hours just listening to Iris talk - and an impossible thought hits Hitomi, like deja vu. Like providence. 

“...Date?”

Falco’s attention immediately flicks to her at her soft call, and Hitomi’s world tilts sideways.

“Y-yeah,” Mizuki sniffs, and wipes her tears with her sleeve, teeth still gritted around the pain she’s feeling. “I don’t - I don’t get that, either.”

“And, uh,” Ota looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here (Hitomi can’t blame him; she feels the same way), but he forges on. “That - Aiba girl? I don’t really...understand...what was…”

He trails off when Falco -  _ Date _ \- sighs.

“We’ve got time before ABIS gets here, I guess,” he says. “You all deserve to know.” His gaze is fixed on Hitomi as he says this. “I’ll try,” he promises, and she knows then he’s talking  _ directly _ to her. “I’ll try my best to explain everything.”

-x-

The greatest rewards come from the greatest hardships. Hitomi doesn’t believe that, really, but it’s a sentiment that hasn’t been far from her mind, recently.

She almost lost her life, her children. She wakes up most nights from hazy nightmares she can’t quite recall, soaked in sweat and unable to get back to sleep again - at least she’s stopped screaming herself awake? That had terrified Iris more than it had her.

But Iris is alive, and will be for a long, long time. A lifetime.

_ I’d do anything for Iris _ , she’d told Date, what felt like forever ago, and she’d meant it. A little suffering, a little trauma - they’re safe, they’re all safe, and Iris’ surgery was a success.

For the first time in years, Hitomi feels like she can actually  _ look _ towards the future.

“Is this okay?” Date’s voice, from behind her, breaks her out of her reverie. He looks dubious, and nervous, and Hitomi can’t hide the giggle she has at his expense. He shoots her a wounded look. “I feel ridiculous.”

“You are ridiculous,” she reassures him. “But you look fine! Spiffy, even.”

“ _ Spiffy, _ ” Iris repeats in a loud whisper from the lounge, voice disbelieving, and Mizuki starts cackling.

Date’s tense stance softens, and he looks in the direction of their girls with a smile.

“See?” Hitomi says. “All you needed was a smile to bring the outfit together.”

He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t stop smiling.

“It’s just my elementary school graduation!” Mizuki calls over the back of the couch, echoing over to the two of them in the kitchen. “It’s not a suit-and-tie event, Date!”

“If I want to wear a suit to your graduation, Mizuki,” he says, “I  _ will _ .”

“But you  _ don’t _ want to! You’re  _ complaining about it!” _

“Sometimes adults complain about things they want to do! Don’t you want nice photos?”

“You don’t have a face that will give us nice photos no matter how fancy you dress up, old man!”

Hitomi snorts. “Don’t worry,” she whispers, right next to his ear. “ _ I _ like your face, Kaname.”

He stiffens, and turns bright red. One hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck, and he avoids meeting her eyes.

They’re taking it slow. Very slow. There’s so much that’s happened - between the two of them, and just in general, over six years of life lived apart. There’s no way to take this  _ but _ slow; what Hitomi had just done may, in fact, have been the most forward part of them rebuilding their relationship step-by-step so far.

They’re getting there, though, she knows. Just a little bit at a time.

Six years and a lifetime in the making, but day by day, they’re getting there - 

\- and once they’re there, the four of them will finally be that one thing they’ve longed to be a part of for forever:

A family.

**Author's Note:**

> meaning behind the title:
> 
> for a sixth wedding anniversary, there are two traditional gifts; sugar or candy (for sweetness) and iron (for strength).


End file.
